Mark Zuckerberg: Time Person of the Year – Why?

I love Facebook and the Zuck as much as the next person, honestly. I simply fail to understand why it is that Time Magazine has named him Person of the Year for 2010. The magazine backs up their choice by saying that: “For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year.” My reaction was a raised eyebrow and an exclamation of “holy crap – seriously?”

Mark is certainly blossoming into a great CEO. His company is undoubtedly an important one, paving the way for the social media movement. He pisses us off, and he makes us love him. We alternately sing his praises on our blog pages and threaten a fate worse than death. We embrace many of the changes he forces down our throats at the same time we’re screaming at him about our privacy.

Do any of these things make him the “Man of the Year?” I honestly don’t believe so, no. In fact, I’m not happy with anyone on the top ten list. Lady Gaga? Really? What the hell has she done to influence the world? How has Steve Jobs managed to make this globe a better place? Please don’t tell me that my iPhone 4 or your Macbook Air is going to save the planet. I don’t want to hear it.

Why is there not a person such as my friend Mark Horvath on that list? He is literally changing the world – one story at a time. He travels all over the place, talking to those living on the streets (and sometimes in the sewers). He is giving a face to the invisible people of our world. By doing that, he’s making an actual difference.

I am well aware that Horvath isn’t the only one out there changing this little ball of gas for the better. There are hundreds – perhaps thousands – of amazing people out there. Why the hell don’t we see them winning an award such as this? Have we really become so illogical – our minds polluted against what’s real and necessary – that we would choose the creator of a social network as the most influential and important person in our world?

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